


The Name's Rex

by PearlyWrites



Category: The LEGO Movie (2014)
Genre: Basically just Rex's rise to power and an exploration on how he went from there, Character Study, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Heartbreak, Insanity, Lucy catches on but too late, Mental Breakdown, Not really major character death just done for the shock factor, Pre-Canon, Revenge, Rex is CRAZY, Sort Of, Unikitty dies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-12-30 17:17:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18319763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PearlyWrites/pseuds/PearlyWrites
Summary: [Heavy spoilers for Lego Movie 2! Read at your own discretion!]Rex didn't come from nowhere. And he didn't go straight back in time to save Emmet after assembling the REXCELSIOR. Instead, he decides to pay his 'friends' a visit and exact his revenge.





	1. Broken

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like the movie doesn't properly explore just how INSANE Rex is and how broken beyond repair he must be, so I wrote this fic to fill that void. Will be multi-part but still probably not very long.

When it finally cemented in Emmet’s head that his friends couldn’t hear him and were never coming back, he cried. He cried harder and longer than he’d ever cried in his whole life. Some desperate part of him hoped his crying would alert the others, alert  _ someone _ , but it was futile, like everything else he’d tried. Even his own abundant optimism found its crippling end.

He cried for hours and hours, drowning in horror and agony. The People Upstairs came and went. Emmet was forced to watch, immobilized as he was in the real world, as Batman was married to some colorful, amorphous blob and all his friends slowly disappeared. Everything was even just how it was in his dream: Batman was dressed in some bizarre, extravagantly white and glittery version of his normal outfit, an ice cream cone man conducted the ceremony, and the disturbing dolphin clock announced it was 5:15 p.m.

Well, except Armomageddon didn’t happen.

He felt… so  _ hollow _ . After so much crying, he had nothing left. No fear, no happiness… just emptiness. There was no point in crying anymore, even if he could, and he couldn’t move back out from beyond Undar where he could be seen.

Time seemed to blur after that. No more major conflicts, the rivalries calmed down. The siblings controlling the pieces even starting playing downstairs together. ...And nobody ever found Emmet. The only constant in his new existence was the Woman Upstairs coming to restart the howling winds of Dryar every few days.

Hours turned into days, into weeks, into months… Into years. The human siblings played with the toys that made up Emmet’s world less and less. They moved on to other items: diaries for writing, cars and bikes for driving, video games… He wasn’t exactly sure when it happened, since he’d lost all concept of time, but at some point, he realized the impermanence of his world. Since his encounter with the child named Finn back during the battle against Lord Business, he’d always vaguely known that his world, his reality, was separate from theirs and that they saw him and his friends as toys. He was fine with that. It was maybe a little creepy to think about at times, but he’d come to accept it. The other Master Builders seemed to be somewhat aware of it, too.

But now, as he watched all those toys sealed away in the Bin of Stor-aj anyway, regardless of Armomageddon, he realized it was inevitable. The play marriage was only to smooth the relationship between the boy and the girl. His world being abandoned and doomed to an eternity of darkness was fate from the beginning. Had they known that? he wondered. Had his friends (if he could even call them that) known the sealing couldn’t be avoided and chose to delay it anyway? For what? A sense of false happiness?

… Was that all he ever was to them? A means to securing an extended delay?

He’d known he wasn’t really the Special, but this was a new low. Those figures, those  _ pieces _ he’d considered his friends - Benny, Unikitty, Metalbeard - they’d just  _ used _ him. They hadn’t really cared at all! How many times had he gone and saved them, risked his life for them when they needed him? And for what? To be ridiculed? Belittled for being ‘too optimistic’, ‘too happy’? Left behind because he wouldn’t ‘get with the times’? Once he was finally gone, they moved on. Pretended he never existed in the first place. Life was just peachy keen for them now that annoying, stupid Emmet was out of their lives. For the first time in his life, something inside him snapped.

He had had enough.

Moving in the real world had been so, so hard the first several times he’d tried, but now, emptiness slowly being replaced with anger and wrath, he finally found the strength to push his plastic body with its limited movement into a standing position. For the first time in years, he stepped away from Undar and into sunlight, but he had no time to revel in it. They didn’t want Emmet? Fine. They wouldn’t get Emmet. They would get  _ so much more _ .

It was simple, really, running over to the chair that let him climb up to the desk he knew held spare Legos. A little digging procured him new navy blue pants and darker, windblown hair that felt so  _ right _ to put on. A fine point Sharpie was all he needed to shave away that embarrassing baby fat and replace it with attractive high cheekbones and dashing chin stubble. After so many years of looking  _ exactly _ the same, it was energizing to look in the mirror and see someone new, someone  _ better _ .

Then he found the vest. It was like his current one but without sleeves and colored a darker blue, matching the new pants, with a neon green  _ R _ emblazoned on it. He didn’t know what set or series it came from but it didn’t matter to him - all he cared about was that they were his now and that, like everything else from now on, he was going to take whatever he wanted.

He realized, with a distant sense of disappointment, that he was a little too late to make his former friends pay for abandoning him, seeing as they were all currently locked up in storage from disuse. But that wasn’t a problem, he thought with a twisted grin growing. A Master Builder like him could cook up anything he wanted out of the countless bricks scattered around the basement.

Once again, it was laughably easy for him to disassemble miscellaneous sets themed around time travel and reconstructing them into his own totally awesome battleship. He hadn’t meant to build it in the shape of a fist, but some part of his anger manifested enough to make it so. He wasn’t complaining - that just made it even more awesome.

And it was awesome.  _ He _ was awesome. He was standing up for himself and making his own choices, free from expectations and pressure that his ex-friends forced on him. From now on, he promised himself, he wouldn’t fight for anyone but himself, because that was the only person in the world he could trust.

Powering up his new time travel engine, he travelled millions of years into the past, once again fully immersed in his original pretend world. He needed someone to pilot the new ship and make sure everything worked properly. Of the new knowledge pouring into his head from Finn’s experiences over the years, he recalled that raptors were theorized to be one of the smartest species of dinosaurs to ever live, so he decided to start there. Of course, they were still dinosaurs and easily manipulated into undying loyalty at the sight of a tennis ball, so it was once again a simple matter to man his ship.

Once he had trained the raptors in their new positions (he suspected it was so easy because of some other media his voice actor had been in but he decided not to dwell on the meta too long), he knew without a doubt that his next step was to pay his good old friends a visit. So he fired up the time travel engine again and took a seat comfortably at the front of his ship, surveying his handiwork.

Then again, if he  _ really _ wanted to exact revenge for their inaction, he was going to need an entirely new look, and not just aesthetically. He glanced down at the  _ R _ on his new vest thoughtfully, then grinned in a twisted manner. He was a king now, the king of his own life and a trainer of dinosaurs. And what was a king of the dinosaurs called?

Rex.


	2. First Impressions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex meets the inhabitants of the Systar System.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the short chapter, but I imagine things will be pretty snappy from here on out, now that I'm done with the 'transitional' monologue from chapter 1

Of all the things that had happened over the course of the last two years, Lucy only had one regret: she never found Emmet.

The last time they ever saw each other was when Mayhem had first kidnapped her and the other Master Builders, when she cried out for him and he swore he would find her.

It wasn’t like Emmet to give up. Something must have gone horribly wrong.

Once the group had realized Wa’nabi’s true intentions, that she wanted to prevent Armomageddon and unite the galaxy, everyone settled down and relaxed - except Lucy. As much as she finally trusted the queen and Mayhem, she still couldn’t rid herself of the nagging fear that something was wrong with Emmet. She tried voicing her fears to other people but they brushed her aside, saying things like ‘it’s good for him to be away from you for once’ and ‘if he had really wanted to come, he would be here already’. Ultimately, what convinced her to stay and not return to Apocalypseburg was the queen pointing out that the balance was still strenuous - a return to Apocalypseburg so soon after the wedding could disrupt the delicate peace and destroy everything they’d worked to achieve. 

So she stayed and stopped asking for someone to take her back. But she never once stopped thinking about poor, sweet Emmet, especially when she really thought more on the last things she’d said to him. ‘Grow up’? ‘Be more mature’? He’d been right all along! The entirety of Fynnzruum needed a more positive mental attitude, which he was more than happy to give, and what had she done? Pushed him down, gotten mad at him for just being himself. She couldn’t live with the guilt of knowing that that was all she had said to him before they left - even if Emmet gave up on her and wanted to stay in Apocalypseburg, she couldn’t deny the need to find him again and at least apologize. He deserved that  _ at least _ .

Then one day, when she was wondering how best to persuade the queen to let her build a ship and venture back through the Stairgate, a stranger visited the Systar System.

“Wyldstyle, there’s somebody new here!” Unikitty shouted as she burst into Lucy’s room, nearly scaring her out of her pants. “They’re coming in a ship we’ve never seen before, you gotta come see!” With honestly nothing better to do, Lucy ran out after Unikitty, sliding to a halt on the planet’s docking station. Sure enough, an absolutely massive navy blue spaceship was slowly descending onto the station, blasting funky music she’d never heard before. It was like the music Mayhem had been playing from her personal craft all those years ago, but… older?

She caught up quickly with Batman, Metalbeard, Benny, Unikitty, and General Mayhem all gathered near the base of the dock. “What’s going on?” Lucy asked, directing the question more towards Mayhem but hoping other people knew as well.

“No idea,” Batman growled.

Lucy looked to Mayhem for help but the general just shook her head, colorful pigtails waggling. “I don’t know. Nobody’s ever seen that ship before, or even anything like it. Might be some deep space renegade…?” but even she didn’t sound certain.

It didn’t take long for the mysterious ship to land heavily on the dock and lower its main entrance gates. Fog poured out dramatically, engulfing the ragtag ‘welcome party’ as the bass boomed louder.

“Helloooooo, Systar System!” a simultaneously gruff and smooth voice called out as a minifigure swaggered down the slope, flanked by two… dinosaurs? The man finally stepped out of the fog, revealing a ruggedly handsome face and clothes that exactly matched the color scheme of his ship, grinning broadly with his arms spread. He seemed almost too attractive to be real - one of those fabricated supermodel heroes. Lucy wasn’t sure what to make of him.

“State your name and business,” Mayhem said sharply, stepping forward.

“Ooh, so harsh!” The man’s smile didn’t waver, although his gaze seemed to linger just a little too long on Mayhem’s face, though that might have been Lucy’s imagination. “The name’s Rex. Rex Dangervest!” he announced with a hint of laughter in his tone as he struck a dramatic pose.

Lucy heard Benny and Unikitty ooh-ing and aah-ing behind her. She rolled her eyes.

“Where are you from?” Mayhem continued, still looking suspicious.

“Ah, nowhere really,” Rex replied casually. “I’m a wanderer, a true loner, y’know? My only home is my sweet ship, the  _ Rexcelsior _ !” He gestured grandly behind him and the dinosaurs squawked as if in agreement. “As for your other question, I just decided it was high time I pay this quaint little system a visit.” He grinned down at the group like he was the greatest thing that had ever happened to them. “I do love exploring and completing cool missions, after all.”

“So you’re a bounty hunter?” Mayhem pressed.

“I prefer the term ‘adventurer’.”

“Well… as long as you mean us no harm, you are welcome here,” Mayhem said, a tad hesitantly. “On behalf of Queen Watevra Wa’nabi, I welcome you.” She bowed slightly.

“Aww, thanks!” Rex closed the distance between himself and Sweet and gave her a friendly punch on the arm. “You don’t mind if I bring my raptors with me, do you? ‘Cause they come with me everywhere and I’d hate to cause problems.” His expression and question was innocent enough, but something about his tone bothered Lucy deeply. Like an underlying threat.

“That… should be fine -” Mayhem began to reply.

“Great!” The word was out of Rex’s mouth before Mayhem could finish her sentence. “Here, lemme introduce you - this one on the left is Orange and the one on my right is The First One. They’re total sweethearts, won’t cause any trouble at all!” he promised, still with that permanent grin. Lucy was beginning to wonder if he had any other facial expressions.

“And who’re these cool folks?” Rex asked, suddenly switching attention to the Master Builders behind Mayhem.

“I’m Princess Unikitty!” the cat creature beamed.

“Nice to meet ya, your highness!”

“Yarr, call me Metalbeard,” the pirate growled.

“A fitting name!”

“I’m Batman.”

“The one and only!”

“I’m Ben but you can call me Benny and I like SPACESHIPS!”

“Ah, a man of excellent taste!” Then he turned his full attention to Lucy. “And who’s this lovely lady?” he asked with a flirtatious wink.

“I’m Wyldstyle,” she said automatically.

“Cool name for a cool girl! I like it.” Then he was off again, brushing past them into the main planetary building. “So what’s a guy gotta do to get a tour of this place?” As Mayhem quickly followed him and tried escorting the bizarre newcomer and his raptors, Lucy finally realized what had been bugging her so much about this man. It wasn’t the outfit, the dinosaurs, or even the behavior. It was his voice. It was a little lower and rougher than when she had last heard it, but she knew that voice anywhere.

He sounded like Emmet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lucy's not easily fooled - it's why it took so long for her to admit Watevra wasn't evil. And she would recognize her boy's voice. Wonder what Rex thinks of that?.... ;)

**Author's Note:**

> Next up, Lucy's perspective three years ago, with Rex's first time jump (not counting collecting the raptors)


End file.
